For those leaving home for the first time, halls can be a pleasant halfway house between full independence and the parental teat. Advantages include reliable broadband and kitchens that must comply with basic health-and-safety standards. Among the downsides are having to rely on the college canteen, and draconian rules about noise, smoking, not leaving the washing up for an entire term, and the like. Making it even less bearable will be the ease with which the boarding school veterans settle in. Don’t worry. You’ll get the hang of things. And if you don’t, you can always leave and never talk to them again.

Living out

The advantages are obvious: play music as loudly as you want, keep your own hours, use anything you like as an ashtray.

The disadvantages are less clear at first – bins do not empty themselves, plugs do not self-unclog, and ham does not self-replicate – but will be very obvious within the first month. It’s also true that many houses are let to students because they have clear flaws that would be intolerable to older renters with jobs. These include, but not exclusively, leaking ceilings, running water that lurches in temperature from ‘liquid nitrogen’ to ‘magma’ in less than a second, exposed wiring, nightmare neighbours and bees in the attic.

But if you do end up living out, it is crucial to keep an inviolable emergency fund, of no more than ten pounds, which is safe from the ravages of booze, fags and Monster Munch. Penury is one thing, but having to borrow a pound for some loo roll is quite another.

Decoration

Whether you live in or out, remember that your room is no longer just a bedroom. It is also a study, living room and meeting place. You’ll have guests. Think about what kind of message your décor sends out. For boys: time to throw the topless Nuts posters out. Girls: you’re too old to want to be a horse, so leave behind anything that gives this impression.

Overt symbols of gap-yah tragedy should be avoided like the plague, as should anything valuable. It will only get broken.

Pick your neighbours carefully

Chances are university will be the first time you choose who you live with. There are various things to bear in mind when choosing your housemates. Most importantly, don’t live with someone you fancy. In your head it might seem like the perfect plan – befriend them, and wait for your moment to pounce. In reality you might befriend them, but “the moment” will occur to you at three in the morning when you are blind drunk and they are trying to revise.

Also, under no circumstances agree to live with anyone until the second term, or better still the second year. Your best friend from Freshers’ Week will most likely turn out to be a sociopathic weirdo with whom you want nothing to do in the medium to long-term. And it's considerably easier to avoid someone who doesn’t live next door.

Living at home

Yes, there is a third option – going to university in your hometown, and simply carrying on as if you were at school. What you miss out on by not moving out, you make up for with a superior standard of living, and less student debt afterwards. At least, that's the theory. In practice, you might find that some of the traditional university activities such as self-reinvention, extreme binge-drinking and sex with near-strangers are made more difficult by the proximity of your parents.

But don’t take it from me – here’s an excerpt from Alan Partridge’s memoirs, I Partridge, in which the perennial student favourite offers the last word(s) on the matter:

"...Enigmatically, I had decided to stay not in the woodworm-infested squalor of university halls, but to commute in from my home (my parents' home). Although misinterpreted by some of my peers as reluctance to cut the apron strings and live independently, the decision to reside at home was a canny marshalling of my resources. It enabled me to avoid the scruffiness of my shaggy-haired, sandal-wearing colleagues. By using my 'rent money' wisely, I was never less than beautifully shod.

... It was a time of sex, drums and rock and roll, and these three things (or four things depending on whether you count 'rock and roll' as one item or two) provided the backdrop to a very crazy time. I know for a fact that I would have developed a pretty impressive booze habit and had full sex had it not been for the fact I was expected home for 6 to 6.30."